SPARK

Jay Young Gerard
“Silent Scream”
Response

A Slice of Americana
By Lisa Nielsen
Inspiration piece

A woman in a cowgirl hat walks
with determination to the corner bar
There haven’t been horses here in over 100 years, still
it’s a conversation starter

After several whiskeys and a bowl of peanuts
she’s using her heart like a sponge

Listening to a lonely man’s soliloquy,
She tries jumping in, like a young girl strategizing double dutch.
But this isn’t banter and her timing is always off,
Without a crack in his filibuster she will not beat the ropes

She doesn’t belong, isn’t that what they said?
Their smirks and darkness landing right on her head.

So she sang to the mural painted on the brick wall,
By the dartboard, by the bathrooms, by the scuffed floor
and dusty entrails of last night’s reveries
Her arms mimicking the wavy stars and stripes

She’s not a jukebox hero tonight, just another drunk
in the corner bar who may or may not belong after all

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